9th Dec 2015 10:00
LONDON (Alliance News) - Scholium Group PLC on Wednesday reported a swing to a small pretax profit in its first half, and said it had seen an "encouraging" start to its second half.
Scholium sells rare and collectible books.
For the half year to end-September, Scholium reported a pretax profit of GBP6,000, swung from a pretax loss of GBP262,000 a year before, as revenue rose to GBP3.3 million, up from GBP2.4 million.
The company said it had benefited from the sale of its South Kensington business, as well as a decision to diversify its stock into areas less susceptible to international political risk. Over the half year its Shapero Rare Books business repositioned its stock to focus on areas it thought to be "more resilient and of greater interest" to the newer generation of book collectors.
"The international political instability of the last twelve months which impacted a number of established customers created a challenge for the management team, but we are delighted that they have responded admirably and managed to reposition stock, increase revenue and gross profits, reduce the cost base and return the business to operational profitability. The performance of the business over the first six months and the start of the second half is encouraging and we look forward to the prospects of the second half of the year," Chairman Jasper Allen in a statement.
Shares in Scholium were down 3.6% at 40.00 pence Wednesday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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